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Bad Air Days

This long, hot summer has produced one of the worst smog seasons in years for the Northeastern United States. It has also been unkind to the lakes and streams in the Adirondacks and other Northeastern forests, which continue to suffer from acid rain. In both cases, there is a common culprit -- windblown pollution that originates in the coal-fired power plants of the Midwest and drifts eastward to poison the air over Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and New England. But there may be relief on the way, in the form of new anti-smog regulations proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and a bill introduced by New York's two Senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alfonse D'Amato. Both are under attack from Midwestern governors and Congressmen.

State environmental agencies report nearly 2,000 violations of Federal ozone standards so far this year. New York alone recorded 74 violations between mid-May and mid-July. As for acid rain, a new Federal study mandated by the 1990 Clean Air Act shows that emissions of sulfur dioxide, the main cause of acid rain, have declined sharply, due mainly to controls imposed by the 1990 act and an innovative financial system under which pollution credits are traded on the open market. But the study also says that the Adirondacks ecosystem is not improving, suggesting that further reductions in sulfur dioxide will be necessary.

Carol Browner, the E.P.A. administrator, is scheduled next month to issue new regulations governing power plant emissions of nitrogen oxides -- a fossil fuel byproduct that produces ozone, or smog, when heated by the summer sun. Eastern states like New York and New Jersey would be required to make some reductions, but most of the burden would fall on ''upwind'' states like Ohio and Indiana. As a collateral benefit, the regulations would also improve water quality in the Northeast. Nitrogen-based air pollution destroys oxygen in water, placing another burden on estuaries like Long Island Sound and Chesapeake Bay that are already threatened by agricultural runoff.

In what amounts to the legislative equivalent of the E.P.A. regulations, the Moynihan-D'Amato bill would require a 70 percent cut in nitrogen oxide emissions and a 50 percent cut in sulfur dioxide emissions beyond those required in the 1990 act. The Senate bill would also offer an emissions trading system for nitrogen oxide similar to the scheme that has helped bring down sulfur emissions. Taken together, some scientists believe, these cuts would allow ecosystems in the Adirondacks and other Northeastern forests to move toward recovery.

Both the E.P.A. regulations and the bill are strongly opposed by the Midwestern utilities and their Congressional allies. They argue that the new controls will be expensive, and that they do not cover cars and trucks, a major source of smog-causing nitrogen oxides. They are right on both counts. But if history is any guide, the costs will be considerably less than the companies predict, and pollution from cars and trucks is being addressed under other sections of the Clean Air Act. In any case, the greater unfairness is that one section of the country, the Northeast, suffers disproportionately from pollution manufactured elsewhere. That unfairness needs correcting.